Scientific and Technological Advancements (Prehistoric Era to 600 CE)

Introduction

The motion of the heavenly bodies fascinated many ancient cultures because they believed they had an impact on what happened on Earth.

• The astral rhythms were carefully observed by the ancients, who calculated how the seasons fit into this calendar.
• By 2700 BCE, Sumer, one of the earliest Mesopotamian cities, had created the first calendar, which had 354 days.
• By 1400 BCE, China had created a calendar that was remarkably similar to the one we use today.
• The Maya people of Central America created an incredibly precise calendar based on a widely recognized event, such as the birth of Christ, that could predict eclipses and planetary conjunctions.
• In the sixth century CE, Dionysius Exiguous developed the modern dating method.

Metal Forging

• Before the Bronze Age, copper smelting started in Catal Huyuk.
• But around 4000 BCE, the first bronze was made by people in northern Thailand.
• Around 2200 BCE, the first bronze foundry was established in China.
• By 1200 BCE, the Hittites in western Asia had mastered the art of making iron, and ironwork was also well-known in central Africa.
• By 500 BCE, the iron age had spread to China. Because iron was easier to produce than bronze, it was quickly used extensively in both farming and warfare.
  • The Chinese started casting iron a thousand years before the Europeans even did.
  • Chinese steel production started around the same time as their iron casting.
  • Aluminum was first refined by the Chinese about 1,500 years before Europeans did.
• Around 200 BCE, the Andes region saw the development of gold smelting, which was primarily used for jewelry.
• After 600 CE, cultures in the Western Hemisphere also started to process copper and silver, but never iron or bronze.
• Around 1100 BCE, the Chavan culture of the Andes was where rubber was first discovered.

Scientific Tools and Speculations

• Writing was first created by people in the Near East. They used animal skins, papyrus and clay tablets.
• The earliest surviving writing in China was discovered incised on animal bones, turtle shells, and bronze objects.
• Around the beginning of the Common Era, the Chinese developed paper, a material that was much less expensive than silk and more portable than clay tablets or metal.

Science and Mathematics

• The mathematical and scientific speculative fields have benefited greatly from the contributions of Western civilizations.
• Around 3000 BCE, the Near East developed the abacus, demonstrating a fascination with numbers, mathematics, and the sciences.
• Pythagoras (500 BCE), a well-known scientist, also developed both scientific and illogical theories about the nature of the physical universe in addition to discovering useful triangle-related information.
• Geometrical insights from Euclid (300 BCE) are still studied today.
• Aristarchus, a Greek mathematician, used Euclid's theory to calculate the distance between the Sun and the Moon.
• Archimedes, in turn, calculated pi and created tools like the lever and the pulley.
• Before Galileo during the European Renaissance, Greek astronomers made observations and inferences that were unmatched.
• Chinese mathematicians invented the magnetic compass (1 CE), "negative numbers" (100 CE), and the north-south and east-west parallels in maps (265 CE), among other innovations. They were the first to use exponential formulas and scientific notation (200 BCE).

Industry and Medicine

• The Sumerians (around 3000 BCE) and the Shang dynasty in China (around 1700 BCE) were two civilizations that benefited from the wheel's invention as they advanced.
  • The wheelbarrow, created by the Chinese in the first century CE, is one useful example of a wheel.
  • The potter's wheel, which was discovered in Mesopotamia as early as 3500 BCE, and the water wheel, a hydrology invention made around 500 BCE.
  • In the Western Hemisphere, wheels were not used in transportation.
• Around 1500 BCE, the Egyptians were the first people to make glass, but by 100 BCE, Syria was a significant exporter of fine glassware.
• During the Neolithic Era, the Chinese were the first to domesticate the silkworm and mulberry trees for use in making cloth.
  • Then, as the art of silk weaving spread, it eventually made its way to the Byzantine Empire by 550 CE.
  • Around 2500 BCE, cotton was woven and traded in the Indus River valley.
  • Indian textiles are still well-known today, despite other cultures adopting cotton growing and spinning.
• Homeopathy and natural remedies have been used in Chinese medicine for a very long time.
  • By 2500 BCE, Acupuncture started in China.
• It is well known that the Mesoamericans learned a great deal about how to use plants as medicines.
  • Around 1,200 indigenous medicinal plants that originated from local practices and traditions were listed by New World chroniclers.
• Greek medicine is renowned for its effective and often imitated treatments for illnesses.
  • The Corpus Hippocraticum, a medical text written by the renowned Greek physician Hippocrates, was published in 400 BCE.
  • Galen (3rd century CE), whose medical writings provided guidance for centuries to come, and Erasistratus of Chios, who explained heart valves (250 CE), were two other notable Greek physicians.